


What Went Unspoken

by cosmicallybrownie



Category: Satan and Me (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Swearing, blood mention, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7744825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicallybrownie/pseuds/cosmicallybrownie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel learns about Anthea's death. Grief follows the news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Went Unspoken

i.

There was a shift in the heavens, a slightly unsettling feeling that swirled energy around and then disappeared, like it was never there at all. It wasn’t uncommon, especially with the end of days rapidly approaching. Gabriel had learned to all but ignore these familiar pulses of energy, but this time it troubled him.

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead and for a moment Gabriel wondered if he forgot something. Shaking his head in a futile attempt to clear away the clouds gathering both in his mind and the skies, he picked up another report to flip through.

The end of days was approaching too rapidly to dwell.

ii.

A week.

Seven days had passed since Anthea died, undignified and bloody on cheap pink carpeting.

Entering the room, Gabriel was struck by just how empty the space felt. The curtains hung in lifeless tatters and the ragged furniture was arranged haphazardly, making the whole area feel off. For a moment it felt unreal, Gabriel swore it was impossible for her to be in a place where there was no life. But as he chanced another glance at where her body lay, Gabriel’s eyebrows pinched together and grief bubbled like poison in his stomach.

No place Anthea lived in ever felt empty, and the breath was sucked out of Gabriel’s chest. She would no longer live.

Darkness wretched his mouth open in a sob and then crawled down his throat to make a home in his chest. His heart was still beating, but it was consumed by the hungry mouth of grief that stole every heartbeat and turned it to pain. Gabriel felt the sweet ache of every beat as it radiated through his body and pulsed to his fingertips. He never bothered to count the ticks of his hearts, but suddenly the urge to do so washed over him as he wondered just how many beats he had left.

He wondered if his days were also numbered.

Helplessness swelled within him, threatening to drown Gabriel in a pit of his own inability. He stared down at Anthea’s smooth face and he wanted to scream and apologize, but instead he babbled, his brain not processing the words his mouth formed. Questions turned to sobs and he choked on his thoughts, losing them to tears. He clenched his hands into fists as he tried to make sense of the world around him but ended empty handed.

God created the world in a week. Six days of work, and on the seventh, God rested. Gabriel fell to his knees and felt the tears stream down his face, hot but empty. God created light and dark as a means of separation and clarity, but God never left instructions on how to rest when everything Gabriel saw was dark.

There was no rest to be found for Gabriel, and no redemption for Anthea. The thought shouldn’t have made him shake.

The skies opened above them, pouring rain down and briefly Gabriel wondered if he could have even felt the coolness of it against his skin. His shaking hands opened briefly to the sky, but the drops rolled off his fingertips and onto the ground, hissing on the sidewalk. He didn’t feel them.

Later he was told the rain was so hot that it burned. Gabriel wondered how it could be when he felt so cold.

iii.

For the first time in seven days, it dawned on Gabriel that Anthea was dead.

Gabriel sat alone in a forest on earth, not exactly sure of where he was. All he knew was that the grass was soft under his feet and he was alone. He pulled up a handful of the grass and threw it into a creek nearby, the water in it flowing so slowly that it was practically stagnant. Somehow it still ran clear, and Gabriel wondered why God made the angels the way they are.

If God wanted perfect soldiers, why did he create armies of angels with free will? The angels could behave as they pleased, as long as they upheld the unspoken laws written in gold by the hand of God. Gabriel thought that it was remarkably shocking to realize your mortality. He was not better than anyone, and certainly not more safe, and with every passing hour, Gabriel felt the pressure of the looming end of days intensify. He was standing on shaky ground in heaven, and he wondered how long it would be until all of the world would be faced by a usurper with the power to bring change. He didn’t know if the change would be positive or negative.

All Gabriel knew was Anthea was dead.

No wishing or contemplation could bring her back from the dead and Gabriel puzzled over the fairness of letting angels and demons have free will if all that was left for them was nothing. When they died, there was nothing left of them, angels or demons. All that remained of Anthea were the memories of her in Gabriel’s mind. The only evidence that she had existed at all was firmly locked away in Gabriel’s mind, and the total of her life was reduce to a few smudged memories.

Gabriel was almost afraid to recall moments of Anthea, especially those before she fell, because a fear bubbled in his chest that all he would be able to see was her, crumpled on the floor, instead of her smiling face. He didn’t want to lose his memories to time, but he was afraid they were already lost to corruption.

iv.  

This wasn’t the first time he lost her.

The grief was worse this time. Gabriel never imagined anything could hurt worse than when she fell. She left him with only a sense of abandonment that he still carried to the present, and it tainted all of his relationships with a particular brand of fear that exhausted him.

Gabriel didn’t want to lose anyone else.

Often his thoughts would turn to her, and he was aching to know if she was okay. He didn’t know what earth was like, and he feared she was suffering. A whisper in his heart constantly prayed that she was content and didn’t yearn for things she couldn’t have. He wondered how much of that prayer was for himself.

His heart thudded out a firm staccato, and he concluded that at least any suffering of hers would be over now.

The thought did not comfort him.

v.

The shiny gold of the cross marking Anthea’s grave mocked him as a cruel reminder that she was no more. A cold ache radiated through his bones and gathered in his joints, making his whole body hurt and feel stiff. Grief rolled over his body in waves and he fell to his knees, ignoring the way the branches and dirt scratched his skin.

He wanted to apologize, as he felt wretched and dirty, like he was the one who lead to her death. He thought of all the things he could have done or said or stopped and he cursed himself. He was a damned coward, and he wished he would have fought. Gabriel clawed at his chest, he should have worked harder, he should have at least _tried._

Gabriel watched Anthea fall. He remembered the way her eyebrows knitted together and her painted lips parted in insecurity. The memory simmered like hot coals behind his eyes and he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes to drive away the picture of her face that haunted him. The fear that she was unable to hide in that moment flashed in his own expression and Gabriel wondered how much of her fall was his fault.

She was the lightest and the darkest place in his life, and he had lived too long to not know that the memory of her fall would be carried with him forever.

His tongue was a trap; the poor messenger had nothing to say when he needed words the most, but now that Anthea was buried, sentences and pleas and cries ran through his mind, a taunting cacophony of regret swirling within his grief.

“I’m sorry,” his words came out, hitching on sobs, “I’m sorry for so many things.”  

Rain drops began to sprinkle down, cold enough to make him shiver as the first drops hit his shoulders and snaked down his back.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry I didn’t stop you. I’m sorry I never found you.”

The rain soaked through his robes, could enough to make him shiver. He bowed his head in prayer, but stopped on the first syllable. There was nothing for God to do now.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Gabriel’s apologies were choked out and drowned in the torrent of rain. They didn’t make a difference now, she would never hear them.

Eventually, he fell silent. His words were too late.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> This fic and all others can be found on my tumblr account under my writing tag  
> cosmicallybrownie.tumblr.com/tagged/hot-off-the-presses


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